(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a dense cordierite sintered body, and more particularly, the invention relates to a method of manufacturing a dense cordierite sintered body with a high strength by using a fine powder mainly consisting of cordierite crystals.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Cordierite has been used as a catalyst carrier for automobiles, heat exchangers and so on because it is excellent in the thermal shock property due to its small coefficient of thermal expansion and heat resistance.
As the method of producing cordierite sintered bodies, there has been employed a method as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 82,822/1978 in which a raw material such as talc, kaoline and aluminum hydroxide is prepared to give the composition of cordierite, and then molded and fired.
However, this method has the defect that a liquid phase is temporarily formed during the firing, and the cordierite is produced through the liquid phase, so that the resulting cordierite is likely to be porous to not result in a dense sintered body. In order to obtain dense cordierite, as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 37,908/1976, there is also known a method of crystallizing cordierite through the crystallization treatment of melted glass under coolin, but this method unfavorably necessitates the crystallization treatment, thereby rendering the producing steps more complicated.
The present invention has been accomplished to resolve the above-mentioned drawbacks encountered by the conventional methods.